Two-Face |
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Portrayed by Jon Hamm |
Statistics |
Full Name |
Harvey Dent |
Age |
40 |
Height |
6'2" |
Build |
Tall, broad |
Eyes |
Mismatched |
Hair |
Black/Patchy |
Factions |
Gotham Rogues |
Occupation |
Schizoid Gangster |
Alignment |
Villain |
Claim to Fame
Harvey Dent made his name as the handsome, straight-shooting District Attorney of Gotham City, a gangbuster, rising political name and ally of the Batman. After being hideously scarred by a criminal, he re-emerged as the monstrous criminal Two-Face, a duality-obsessed nightmare that seems set on destroying everything Harvey Dent once built.
Reputation
Two-Face has a reputation for being extraordinarily clever and utterly ruthless. His legendary coin can decide anyone's fate in a split second, making him impossible to predict. While criminals once shied away from joining his gang, Two-Face's acumen, brutality and knowledge allowed him to rise up the criminal ranks and seize control of a significant chunk of Gotham's organized crime. Some people wonder if golden boy Harvey Dent is still in there somewhere. People who ask that question usually don't last long if Two-Face hears them wonder.
Biography
=Harvey Dent grew up in some of Gotham's worst tenements. His mother died in childbirth, a fact for which Harvey's father continually blamed him. The boy's intellect and love of learning meant nothing to the old man - he expected his son to be street smart, not book smart. After hearing his son quoting Plato and the Founding Fathers about human nature, the old man began to teach him the way the world really worked - every night, he'd tell Harvey he would get either a beating or his allowance, all depending on the flip of Dad's lucky coin. Dad's lucky coin, of course, was a double-headed silver dollar, offering Harvey no chance to escape the brutal assaults - Harvey was meant to learn that nothing was fair and the world was rigged against you. In some ways, he did. His mind was broken and fractured in countless ways from the abuse, but he buried it all deep, unwilling to show his father the satisfaction. He became obsessed with justice, with making things fair even if they weren't.
That lead him, on scholarship, to college and law school, working forty hours a week and managing law school, sleeping only an hour or two a day for several years. The lawyer who emerged, however, had a sharp, incredible skill. Despite his father's best efforts, Harvey emerged handsome, charismatic, and incredibly sociable. He rose up the ranks of the prosecutor's office quickly, his skill with rhetoric giving him one of the highest conviction rates in city history. Naturally, Gotham attempted to corrupt him but found him immune to attempts at bribery or even blackmail, Harvey only striking back at them harder if they tried. After several years, he ran for Chief District Attorney and, despite the corrupted candidates against him, won. Along the way, he became close allies with Lieutenant and then Police Commissioner James Gordon and the vigilante known as the Batman (along with Batman's various allies and proteges, at different times). Between them, they broke the backs of many a syndicate. And all the while, he hid the twitches, the dark moments, the nightmares…and the coin.
Then, in the middle of a prosecution, a gangster's thug decided to avenge his boss by flinging a smuggled vial of acid into Harvey's face, ruining the left side of his visage. The pain and recovery brought back everything he'd repressed - the knowledge that it would ruin his career, that no one would vote for a disfigured DA - all of it together made him finally snap. He checked himself out of the hospital, retrieved his secret files from the DA's office and his personal storage, and then burned his house to the ground. Harvey Dent disappeared, died. And then, months later, word surfaced of a new crimelord - violent, unpredictable, and bisected by a grotesque duality. Two-Face. Batman's sent him to Arkham a few times since, but Harvey's always escaped - or simply outlawyered his way free. They even restored his face once, in an attempt to heal his soul, only to have him tear the false flesh from his body. Many dream of restoring the hero, Harvey Dent, but Two-Face…Two-Face knows he's here to stay.
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Character Details
Harvey Dent has a mind broken by years of abuse, repression, pain and likely congenital insanity. While he suppressed his darker instincts for years, his scarring awoke these inner demons and unleashed them forever (or so it seems). He's consumed with hatred, both for himself and for the world outside. He's obsessed with justice, seeing all human attempts and versions of justice as flawed, biased, corrupt, inferior to the cold, merciless justice of pure fate. For him, pure fate is embodied within his double-headed coin, one side scarred, and he often makes decisions, ranging from the mundane to the catastrophic, at the whim of the coin. Resisting or denying the coin's dictates would be almost impossible for him, a denial of cosmic justice. Two-Face is immensely intelligent, imaginative, and creative. He's forceful, more than comfortable telling others what to do, and has plenty of courage, more than willing to stand up to anyone who gets in his path. Harvey's mind is both order and chaos at the same time, rigidly obsessed with duality, the number two, justice, but, at the same time, unpredictable, constantly surging and receding and prone to unexpected outbursts of violence or catatonia. Two-Face is, in many ways, his own worst enemy - he'd be the first to admit it.
Law |
Harvey Dent possesses one of the world's keenest legal minds - it required one to threaten the well-protected criminal interests of Gotham. He knows the legal code backwards and forwards, with huge swathes of case law committed to memory. He understands where the law can be bent, as well, and where the loopholes exist. He was the most successful prosecutor in the history of Gotham City and probably still would be if it weren't for…y'know, his little incident. |
Criminology |
Harvey studied criminals and their behaviors extensively. He knows how criminal organizations work, how they hide and funnel money, how they maintain order and discipline. He can often predict and manipulate the behavior of criminals, using his knowledge of their motivations against them. He's an expert on deduction and might have made quite an excellent detective had his life taken a different path. He's skilled and fully brief in the most up to date law enforcement methodologies, both in terms of police behavior and forensic routines. This, of course, also means he's quite adept at circumnavigating and manipulating such things. |
Mastermind |
While he applied his mind to law and crime rather than science or industry, Harvey is no less a genius because he chose a different field. He was considered revolutionary in his field, attacking criminal empires and organized crime in ways that had never been done before. His thought processes are extremely flexible, allowing him to think quickly on his feet, to improvise, and to come up with solutions on short notice. His insight and intellect allow him to read other people relatively easily, and he's learned to take a certain pleasure in toying with those he considers beneath him. As a criminal, he's proven capable of cobbling together elaborate schemes and diabolical heists, earning himself a reputation among the criminal set that easily matches that he held among the law-abiding. |
Brutality |
Harvey never received much formal training in combat, but he's a hell of a fighter nonetheless. He spent a childhood taking beatings from his father and from the neighborhood bullies - he never just laid there and took it, he always fought back, and he kept fighting back until he started winning. He did some boxing in high school and college, more just spending time with gloves and a bag than any express training or teaching. He'd spar with guys and often outhandle more skilled opponent with raw ferocity and tenacity. Two-Face knows no honor or mercy in a fight - he'll scratch, claw, kick, bite, knee, elbow, headbutt and punch his way through anything that gets in his way. |
Guns |
Harvey first started learning how to shoot as a DA, for the purposes of self-defense, training at the firing range with the cops (and he could've easily qualified for the force). In his post-legal career, he's done plenty of shooting, and he's proven damned good at it. His primary weapons of choice are automatic pistols or revolvers, a double barreled shotgun and the good, old fashioned tommy gun. |
Arson |
Harvey's discovered a fascination with fire, the way it scars. Nothing it touches it leaves the same, and Harvey cannot help but see the parallels. Fire has become one of his weapons of choice. He's capable of most of the major feats of arson, from the jug and rag method to more conventional explosives and timers. He's fairly fond of molotov cocktails and is quite adept with a blowtorch. He can use arson as a weapon of mass destruction or a weapon of very, very personal torment. He likes flamethrowers and has managed to stash a few away from an old police evidence lockup. |
Rhetoric |
Harvey Dent excelled at the art of argument. As good as he was with paperwork and legal precedent, he was known best for his work in the courtroom. He can formulate, explain, present, counteract and dissect an argument from a thousand angles. He was always the master of playing Devil's advocate - he's just even better at it now. People who get into arguments with Two-Face tend to lose, even when they're right and he's wrong. |
Finance |
Part of being a district attorney involved unravelling the complex financial maneuverings of organized crime. He dismantled their pyramid schemes, found their secret accounts and kept them from laundering their money. Thus, now that he's a criminal, he's quite familiar with how to do all of these things and not get caught. |
Mindgames |
Two-Face has become quite adept at mindgames, psychological warfare. He's been terrorized, after all, but some of the worst villains that ever lived in his own time, and he picked up a few tricks along the way. Misdirection, horror, shock - all of these are in his toolbox. He also knows how to discover someone's weaknesses and how to use those against them, knowing just the right buttons to push to get the reactions he desires. While he's adept enough at physical torture, psychological torture is far more satisfying to Two-Face. |
Gangster |
Two-Face has built a formidable criminal operation, one to rival most any in Gotham. His time as District Attorney made it surprisingly easy - while he may have lacked evidence for trials, he knew what gangs were weak, ripe for the picking or easily turned. He has an ample supply of low-level thugs, muscle and hitmen, with fingers directly involved in protection rackets, weapons dealing, along with the usual drugs and prostitution. He 'owns' several buildings and clubs that serve as makeshift headquarters at different times and access to several caches of hidden weapons. He has the leverage and cash to hire other villains and assassins to do his bidding. Cashwise, he usually has several hundred thousand on hand for short notice. Basically, he's a power in the Gotham underworld and one not to be crossed lightly. |
Fallen Knight |
Harvey Dent was once one of Gotham's heroes, the public face of justice. He worked alongside the police and some of the more prominent vigilantes to try and clean up the city, earning their trust, respect, even their love. While he has fallen far from that state of grace, the memory of it lingers. Those who knew him may hesitate to strike against Harvey with their full force. They may waste time trying to reach the good still within him or trying to somehow redeem or talk him out of bad actions. Two-Face sometimes even gives them false hope, showing glimpses of good old law-abiding Harv so they squirt a few more tears for him. It's kind of fun and it's a good way to find opportunities for escape and revenge. |
Unpredictable |
Two-Face can be extremely difficult to predict because he makes decisions based on neither reason or emotion, but by pure, unbiased chance. Sometimes he will act contrary to his own best interests. Sometimes he will show brutality where his heart desires mercy, and vice versa. Since he himself rarely knows what he will do, others can have an extremely difficult time anticipating and counteracting his moves. |
Corruption |
Two-Face has quite a few city officials, cops, lawyers and trusted, stand-up citizens secretly in his pocket. Quite simply, his office performed a wide array of investigations trying to root out corruption. While he didn't always have enough to file charges or pursue them criminally, he kept that evidence away for a rainy day in a storage locker. Now, he uses that evidence to get what he wants, possessing leverage over much more of Gotham than one might imagine. Obviously, there are some forces that are incorruptible - But Harvey, having once been one of them, knows who they are as well and is constantly seeking to undermine and unseat them from power. |
Scarred |
The left side of Harvey Dent's face is notoriously ruined, an acid-burned mass of swollen, broken flesh, melted away, torn, broken and made hideous. Disguise can only do so much and the application of most forms of make-up are far too painful regardless - not to mention his psychosis rebels against the idea of covering up his mutilation. Beyond that, he's mutilated the left side of his body willingly, marking himself from neck to ankle with a wide variety of scars by various methods. He can, by no means, pass as physically normal. |
Duality |
Harvey is obsessed with the concept of duality, pairs and the number two. Things with such themes or motifs will immediately catch his interest or draw his eye. He often themes heists or schemes around these ideas. He may make mistakes in order to accomodate his obsession or refuse to do something that makes perfect sense simply because he cannot incorporate his obsession with duality (i.e. he might not set off only one stick of dynamite…but TWO, absolutely). |
Coin |
Harvey has a psychological dependency on a double-headed coin that once belonged to his abusive father. Once used as a tool to show the boy that the world was unjust, Two-Face has made it the arbiter of true justice - with one side scarred and marked as Harvey himself. While he doesn't rely on the coin to arbitrate every decision, he uses it often and the more important the choice, the more likely he is to rely on the judgment of chance. He will abide by the ruling of the coin, regardless of whether he likes it or not. If it says to show mercy to an enemy, he will let the enemy go. If it says that he must throw away or destroy a beloved item, he will do it in a heartbeat. Justice allows no compromise. If he is deprived of his coin in some way, Two-Face will rapidly become panicked, crippled and deranged into a state of hysteria. |
Harvey Dent |
Just as Harvey's former allies might hesitate to go all out against him, so, too, does Two-Face occasionally feel the pangs of Harvey's conscience in regards to those he once considered trusted. It's not often, but, every now and then, the old Harvey Dent surfaces within Two-Face's dark waters and, when he does, he's quite adept at throwing a monkey wrench into the criminal schemes of the man he's become. |
Ex-Crimefighter |
Harvey Dent was the first honest District Attorney Gotham had seen in generations. He tore apart mobs, ripped up rackets and put a lot of bad guys in jail. Now that he's a criminal himself, some of those bad guys still tend to hold grudges. Even if they don't actively attack him (usually out of fear), getting his fellow crooks to trust him can prove difficult. Two-Face finds it amusing that he gets trouble from both sides of the law. To him, it seems quite appropriate. |
Insane |
Two-Face's mind has been utterly broken, afte years of pressure, denial and repression, triggered by the acid-scarring of his face. Contrary to popular belief, Two-Face does not possess multiple personalities - he's an unholy binary, two-in-one, paired aspects with a shared consciousness. Beyond that, he suffers from intensive bipolar depression, schizophrenia, dementia, hallucinations and obsessive-compulsive disorder. These insanities surge and recede like tides - one can never be sure precisely what Two-Face they might be dealing with on a given day. |
Relationships
Image |
Name |
Relation |
Information |
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Batman |
Nemesis |
Once the closest thing Harvey Dent had to a friend, the vigilante known as the Batman has proven to be Two-Face's greatest foe - and vice versa. Their former friendship makes their conflicts all the more brutal, emotional and often traumatizing, for them and for those around them. Two-Face won't consider his life complete until he stands over the Batman's body - justice can only spare the Bat for so long. |
Character Gallery
Logs
Business is Business
March 19, 2015: Catwoman and Two-Face have a little face to face to whiskers conversation about Gotham, loyalties and their plans.
(log: 20150319-business-is-business | tags: catwoman gotham twoface | posted: 19 Mar 2015 18:34)
The Right to Breathe
March 8, 2015: Melody Kenway escapes death by the hands of Harvey Dent by delivering him a shocker.
(log: 20150308-therighttobreathe | tags: gotham rant twoface | posted: 08 Mar 2015 08:02)
Two Sides to the Coin
February 22, 2015: Melody Kenway arranges a meet with Harvey Dent days after the annihilation of the Gangster Disciples. The two double-cross the other without knowing.
(log: 20150222-twosidestothecoin | tags: gotham rant twoface | posted: 22 Feb 2015 22:19)
The Double Down Club
February 17, 2015: Gangs, assassination, cage fights, thievery. Just another day in Gotham (NSFW racial languages, death, blood and gore, ton'o swearing)
(log: 20150217-thedoubledownclub | tags: black_cat bluebird gotham shift twoface | posted: 18 Feb 2015 05:31)
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